A brief aside (also learned/stolen from driverchris):"A small nugget that I wasn't aware of; The word countach is an exclamation of astonishment in the Piedmontese language — generally used by men on seeing an extremely beautiful woman. While the term is often considered untranslatable into English, it is essentially equivalent to the British verbalization "Phwoar". Or, it can also be considered the verbal equivalent of a wolf-whistle. Seems appropriate."

While the title is a perfectly apt question to ask of this vessel, it is also the name of this collaboration from Wally and Hermès. I'm not going to get into the debate about the need for such a craft, I'm just in awe of that full scale buck!

We had a huge turnout for Tuesdays ride, I think the head count reached around 22 at one point.

*legal disclaimer: the gate was open, we just felt like a challenge

We found ourselves among the wool stores at the port, where the trick kids did tricks, the sprinters had a flex, and those bent on tyre destruction took part in a couple of impromptu skid competitions. The 5.0 rolled up while this was going on, basically said the universal call of "do a skid" and left us to it. Occasionally you get a good one.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

With the combination of forgotten survival kit, pinch flat, borrowed tube with short stem, and deep rims I could have used one of these the other night.Still, I was better off than the guy I found stranded at 1am last night having been harassed and had his tyre slashed. Gave him my spare tube, some glue and patches and went on my way, I hope he made it the 30 odd km's he had to cover.

Inspired by this Merc post over on Speed Seekers I had to go through my archive and pull out a few images. My 280CE is currently in about 5 shades of paint and primer with all it's trim stuffed into the boot. Still deciding on colour, I think matte black is still the front runner, or matte charcoal at least.

Yeah I stole the title from PB, but it is the only term that springs to mind when considering this XS650. A cursory glance at the shot above will give away some clues about the modifications performed even to those unfamiliar with the breed, but it belies the extent of the work involved. Go to XS650.org to read the whole tale, I'll just leave you with this string of words to give a little idea of the level of obsession: frame, turbo, 6 speed, R1, 4 valve, etc etc.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

I first stumbled upon this shot on The Shame of it All and I couldn't help but track down some more info on them. It turns out they were built in '71 for car show promoter Bob Larivee Sr, they same person who commissioned the full scale Red Baron (I have a very trashed original example of this in toy form somewhere):

In this era building full scale versions of popular toys was all the rage, and this trend spawned the Zingers. The following images are out takes from a story in Hotrod from July '71:

An early Suzuki Carry would make a good base for a slightly more realistic version of this.

The dune buggy is currently being recreated by Moriarity on the Jalopy Journal